[links] Link salad goes bump in the night

The Acts of Whimsy cancer fundraiser and the Lakeside Kickstarter for the documentary about me, the_child, and cancer are still live. Both have made goal, but additional support is always welcome. Please check them out if you have not done so yet. Note that the next unlock goal at $44,000 is the_child‘s video, “How to Write Like My Dad”. We’re almost there!

Restricted Movie Review: The Matrix — Feminist Mormon Housewives on the rather famous movie. Sometimes as an atheist in a religiously-dominated culture, I feel like I’ve taken the blue pill. Religion practice viewed from the outside is very different from religious practiced viewed from the inside.

“Happy birthday, dead baby!” and other charming tactics from “pro-life” clinic protesters — But for me, the tactic that takes the prize was arranging for a children’s choir to serenade entering clinic patients with endless choruses of “Happy birthday, dead baby!” At least one of those on the receiving end of this stunt was a woman who arrived at the clinic because she had experienced an emotionally devastating miscarriage Mother of the Child required exactly that same procedure almost two decades ago. The perversions of the doctor-patient relationship perpetrated by the forced pregnancy movement made it very difficult for us to secure a DNC, because most hospitals wouldn’t permit the procedure in their ORs for fear of protestors. That’s when my opposition to the so-called “Right to Life” movement hardened from a general pro-choice philosophical conviction to a deeply personal understanding that anti-abortion activists will commit any evil, persecute any woman, in the name of their narrow, unscientific religious convictions. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

David Brooks now totally pathological — Moderate Republicanism is a tendency that increasingly defies ideological analysis and instead requires psychological analysis. The psychological mechanism is fairly obvious. The radicalization of the GOP has placed unbearable strain on those few moderates torn between their positions and their attachment to party.

Kansas GOP House Speaker ‘Prays’ That Obama’s ‘Children Be Fatherless And His Wife A Widow’ — Stay classy, conservative America. It’s what you do best. (Note this is not some fringe figure, this is an senior elected GOP leader. A whole lot of people who consider themselves reasonable conservatives and resent being tarred with the crazy brush voted for this man. Which pretty much voids their self-image as reasonable and not part of the conservative crazy.)

Regarding the anti-abortion protesters molesting a woman who had just suffered a miscarriage, this doesn’t just happen in the US unfortunately. A friend of mine suffered a miscarriage several years back and also needed a DNC procedure. Recovering at the hospital afterwards, she was harassed by Catholic nurses at a time of her life that was already difficult.

Regarding the Neanderthal surrogate pregnancy, the Spiegel Online link referred in the article is not hidden behind a paywall (which would be weird, because Spiegel Online does not have paywalls), though it is available only in German. Not that that scientist would be in luck finding a surrogate here, since surrogacy is strictly forbidden in Germany.

The Matrix review from a Mormon POV just shows how I completely do not understand the sort of religious people who will completely deny themselves an experience just because they believe that it conflicts with a doctrine of their faith. Never mind that neither the Bible or the Book of Mormon say anything about movies and that I often find US movie ratings incomprehensible with graphic violence getting PG, while a single f-word gets you an R.